Dex was a romantic cynic, not a cynical romantic; he didn’t actually believe in love at first contact, but Bert shook his hand, said “Hi,” and looked him in the eye—and Dex could see that he was half embarrassed about Lila’s ham-fisted seating-nudge, but, beneath that, he possessed a steady kind of honesty, a gentleness, a desire, always, to believe in good. And Dex thought, It’s you. At last. And there was no worry or rush or panic or any of the things he usually felt when he met someone he was going to fall in love with. Only a warm opening in his chest that could have been happiness. “Hey,”
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